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“God damn it,” North said. He crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at Mike. “She fucking said no already.”
“Shut up, I’m not asking you,” Mike barked back, though he was half smiling. He looked up at me again and his face became serious. “Please?”
I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. “No, sorry.” I had too much to worry about to have to deal with crazy proposals. Now I knew he was teasing me.
“Damn,” Mike said. He jumped up off the ground. “Maybe next time.” He stalked off toward the door to the school. His friends were giggling behind him.
“What the hell was that?” Nathan asked from the grass. He had been on his back nearly the entire time but he was sitting up now.
“Second marriage proposal this week,” Luke said, holding up two fingers. “Am I going to need to keep a scoreboard?”
“There might be another one in here somewhere,” North said. He pulled out a handful of folded notes from his pockets, tossing them at his brother. “I didn’t go through them yet.”
My eyes widened, my hand going over my heart. Was this school so much different than my other one? “Who is it?” I asked. “Who keeps writing to me?”
“It’s different boys,” North said. “Homeroom, geometry and history now.”
Kota pulled out two folded notes from his pocket. “English, too,” he said, looking guiltily at me.
Victor pressed a palm to his eye. “God, I swear, I feel like we’re back in elementary school.”
“Why are they writing?” I asked, confused. “Are they being mean?”
They all blinked at me and started laughing.
“I don’t talk to anyone but you guys,” I said over their laughter, not really understanding. “No one ever talked to me at my old school.”
“Sweetie,” Luke said. He collected my hand and tugged me until I was sitting next to him on the bench. “What did you do at your old school?”
“Went to class, and went home. There wasn’t much else I could do.”
“Did you bother to try to talk to anyone?” he asked.
I blinked, and shook my head. “I never really had the opportunity or knew what to say. Most people ignore me.”
Kota started to laugh. “Everyone probably thought you were stuck up. Since you’re here and talking to us, everyone thinks you’re open and popular so they’re trying to climb the ranks.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not popular.”
They all laughed.
I groaned, putting my elbows on my knees to rest my face in my hands. “You’re all crazy.”
The other classes were quiet. I expected to see Mr. Hendricks or Mr. McCoy pop in, as I’d seen them so often that week. When I made it to gym class without incident, I was happy.
It was the first official day we were supposed to get dressed for gym. When I changed into the uniform, the shorts looked really short. I clapped my palms to my thighs. They were a few inches shorter than my longest fingers. Did the school check for this kind of thing? The t-shirt at least was normal, and perhaps a little big for my frame even though I’d ordered a small.
I’d brought another clip with me just for gym class. I twisted my hair, pulling it away from my face. Gabriel couldn’t do anything about it now. At least I hoped he wouldn’t.
I was walking with the other girls toward the gym when a hooting echoed through the hallway. The girls crowded at the door, peering out. A few of the girls had already entered the gym, crossing the room. The guys were sitting in formation and started hooting cat calls.
“What are we going to do?” one of the girls said, looking back at us. “They’re being stupid.”
The others were thinking of taking the long way around so we had a shorter distance to walk.
“Let’s just all go out together,” I suggested. The others turned to me and I pushed my finger to my lip, unsure. It surprised me that I’d said anything. Maybe the boys were right. Maybe I needed to relax and open up more. “I mean, let’s go and get it over with. Who cares what they do? We’ll be doing this all year and we can’t just avoid it. Just don’t let them think we care. They’ll get over it.”
The other girls smirked. We waited until everyone was together and as a group, we moved into the gym. The guys started clapping and hooting again. The echo in the gym was deafening. I recognized a few of the boys from the fight yesterday. The one who started it wasn’t among them. I wondered if he came to school at all or if Kota managed to wire him.
“Ignore it,” I said to the group, quieter so the guys couldn’t hear. “Just move to your seat and sit. If you look at them, they’ll keep doing it.” If I learned anything from my old schools, it was how to use being invisible as an advantage, especially when it came to avoiding contact with bullies until I was too boring to be any fun. Even I didn’t want that kind of attention.
With focus, the girls moved toward the other end of the room. Some of them did glance up at the boys but for the most part we all ignored the hollering. I caught Nathan and Gabriel sitting on the ground in their assigned spots, both of them watching but not participating. I was happy about that.
The other boys did manage to quiet down after we were all sitting. The boys were rushed into what would be their warm up exercises. The girls’ coach waited until the boys were done before she started talking. She spoke loudly, ordering us to stand up and stretch. She walked through our lines as she gave off commands, getting us to do pushups and sit ups and jumping jacks.
The boys took out basketballs and they started playing. When the girls were done, we were told next week we would start with tennis. This week since we only had one more day left, they would just let us do our warm up exercises and we could talk the rest of the time.
“Hey,” one of the girls said. She was tall, lean, with pixie styled brown hair and big brown eyes. “Don’t we get to play basketball?”
The coach smiled at her. “Want to play?”
The girl nodded.
Coach blew the whistle at her neck, turning around. “Okay boys,” she barked at them. “Play half court. The girls want to play.”
The boys grunted. Nathan and Gabriel were the only two who seemed to perk up at the idea.
I stood up, not wanting to sit down since I’d been sitting all day. I was still sore and knew if I just warmed up my muscles, they’d feel a little better. I joined the brown haired girl and three other girls followed. The others stayed on the floor so they could talk.
Since there were only five of us, we split up. I joined Karen, the tall one who had asked to play basketball first, and the other three were on the other team. Karen was competitive. She barked orders at me and constantly asked for the ball. I didn’t mind. The action was getting me to stop thinking about detention that afternoon.
“Oy,” Gabriel’s voice called from the other side of the gym. Gabriel stood with his hands on his hips, watching us. Nathan stood beside him. “Let some of us join,” Gabriel said. “It’s too crowded on this side.”
Karen held the basketball, rolling it in her hands. “Fine,” she said.
Five boys joined us on our side. Gabriel flashed a grin at me and Nathan was beaming. He seemed to have forgotten he was hurt. Maybe he had the same idea about warming up muscles, or he’d taken some pain killers and was feeling better.
The girls and the guys split up so it was five on each team. A couple of the other boys kept guarding Karen since she was the tallest and clearly the best out of us. For the most part, the boys had the advantage. The other girls were average sized and like me, simply outmatched.
I wasn’t tall enough to attempt to cover Gabriel or Nathan. It didn’t seem to matter. Both hovered over me more often than anyone else. I couldn’t touch the ball before they managed to wrestle it away from me.
When the ball bounced out of bounds, Gabriel ran to fetch it. He caught it and dribbled it at the boundary, trying to figure out who to pass it to. An idea floated into my mind. I waited quietly in front of him as if I was ti
red and wasn’t about to attempt to try to stop him. He bounced the ball a couple of times as Karen and the other girls were doing their best to guard everyone else. He focused on Nathan.
When he lifted the ball to pass, I jumped to life, running across in front of him to snatch it from the air. His eyes popped open in surprise and he ran after me. The others were preoccupied and I had no one to toss it to. In a desperate move, I spun, aimed for the basket from beyond the three point line and made a shot. The ball sank cleanly into the net. It was pure luck.
“Holy shit,” Gabriel said, looking stunned. He laughed, came after me and hooked an arm around my waist, swinging me off the ground. “That was awesome.”
“Hey, boys,” called one of the female coaches. “Keep your hands off of my girls or I’ll give you detention.”
